The High Street Problem
It’s 2025. Walk down any UK high street and you’ll spot them: row after row of bars, all flogging the same cocktails, all playing the same Spotify playlists, all plastering “2-for-1 Happy Hour” on their chalkboards. The trouble? When you look, feel, and sound like everyone else — you disappear.
As Seth Godin argues in Purple Cow, being good is no longer enough. A clean bar, polite staff, and cocktails that taste fine? That’s the bare minimum. To survive, your bar has to be remarkable — something worth noticing, worth photographing, worth talking about the next day at work.
👉 No one Instagrams your generic gin & tonic. They do post a glow-in-the-dark cocktail that looks like it came out of a sci-fi film.
Why Remarkable Beats Reliable
Pubs and bars aren’t the same beast. Pubs thrive on reliability: the roast that hasn’t changed in 20 years, the same faces watching footie every Saturday, the Guinness poured just right. Bars, though? They thrive on novelty. People go to pubs to feel at home. They go to bars to feel different.
The Purple Cow principle is clear: boring = invisible. A bar that serves the same Pornstar Martini as every other joint? Forgettable. A bar that serves a flaming cocktail inside a teapot? Remarkable. People notice. People share. People come back with mates.
Cheeky banter line: No one texts their mates about your “Happy Hour 2-for-1 deal,” Dave. They do text about the bloke who won drag bingo wearing a crown from your bar.
Image suggestion: Customer holding a silly oversized crown or prop in a packed bar, captioned “The story writes itself.”
Case Studies of Standing Out
- Krispy Kreme queues: people didn’t queue for doughnuts, they queued for the experience of hot doughnuts made live.
- Häagen-Dazs in Bronxville: they didn’t just sell ice cream, they created buzz that made people drive out of their way.
Now swap “ice cream” for cocktails and “doughnuts” for quiz nights. The same principle applies: your bar isn’t competing on being better — it’s competing on being different enough to talk about.
Why Old-School Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore
The old bar marketing toolbox — flyers, Facebook events, dodgy posters in student halls — is dead. Customers are drowning in content, and your boosted post about “Live DJ Friday” is just more digital wallpaper.
Jonah Berger’s Contagious breaks down why people actually share: it’s not boring deals. It’s things that give them social currency, spark emotion, or tell a story. A plain poster saying “Live Music Saturday” is invisible. A TikTok showing your saxophonist playing on the bar with sparklers? That’s shareable.
Outbound links for EEAT:
- Seth Godin – Purple Cow
- Jonah Berger – Contagious
- HubSpot – Marketing Trends 2025
- Moz – SEO Basics
Internal link suggestion: “If you’re running a traditional pub, check out our Pub Marketing 2025 Guide for the community-driven approach.”
The 2025 Playbook
Bars that thrive this year don’t just sling drinks and hope for the best. They design their events and experiences around remarkability and shareability. Jonah Berger’s STEPPS framework gives us the recipe:
- Social Currency – Give people something cool to brag about. Think: “I unlocked the secret cocktail menu.”
- Triggers – Build associations that stick. Example: Wednesday = Cocktail Roulette Night. When people think Wednesday, they think your bar.
- Emotion – Get them laughing, gasping, or tearing up. Emotion makes content spread faster than discounts ever could.
- Public – Make your remarkable element highly visible. A neon mural on your bar wall becomes free advertising every time someone takes a selfie.
- Practical Value – Give people something genuinely useful: a killer £5 cocktail that tastes like £15.
- Stories – Wrap your events in narratives. “Every Friday, our bar transforms into a cocktail casino” is a story people repeat.
Five Purple Cow Strategies for Bars That Fill Seats
1. Signature Spectacle
Your bar needs a headline act — something visually striking that demands to be photographed. Ideas:
- Glow-in-the-dark cocktail menus that react under UV.
- A cocktail roulette wheel where guests spin to choose their drink.
- A bartender fire show once an hour.
👉 Nobody shares a boring vodka lemonade. But a roulette wheel that makes your mate down a mystery drink? Viral gold.
2. Exclusive Experiences
Bars should feel like insider clubs. When people feel like they’re “in on something,” they talk about it more. Examples:
- Secret menu items you only get if you whisper a password.
- Members-only nights with personalised cocktail tastings.
- Reservation-only “bartender’s table” behind the bar.
Cheeky banter line: Give your regulars a secret handshake, and suddenly they’re your unpaid PR team.
3. Cross-Culture Mashups
Mashups make magic. When you combine two worlds, people pay attention:
- Silent disco + quiz night.
- Drag bingo Sunday lunch.
- Karaoke + cocktails mashup.
These ideas sound daft at first, but that’s the point — daft is memorable.
4. Visual Branding That Pops
Bars live or die on Instagram and TikTok. Your visuals are your marketing. Examples:
- Neon murals begging for selfies.
- Menus that glow, animate, or change colour.
- Signature cocktails served in outrageous props (lightbulbs, boots, teapots).
👉 Your bar’s walls should be more famous than your drinks.
5. Remarkable Service Rituals
The way you serve can be as memorable as what you serve:
- Shots delivered via magic trick.
- A bell rung every time someone orders the “house challenge drink.”
- Birthday cocktails presented like sparklers at a festival.
Cheeky banter line: No one cares that you “make cocktails.” They care that you made their mate wear a sombrero and down one while the whole bar cheered.
The Difference Between Forgettable & Remarkable
Bars that cling to “Happy Hour” deals will fade into the background. Bars that create moments worth sharing will own 2025. Marketing your bar isn’t about spamming Instagram. It’s about creating a story your customers can’t resist telling for you.
How SmartPubTools Makes It Easy
Here’s the kicker: you don’t need a giant marketing budget to pull this off. SmartPubTools is your Purple Cow engine. Our platform:
- Transforms your quirky ideas into daily social posts with cheeky British humour.
- Auto-generates captions around quiz nights, karaoke, match days, and cocktail events.
- Creates images and posters in seconds with AI.
- Keeps your bar top of mind with posts that factor in sports fixtures and even the local weather.
Cheeky banter line: Think of us as the mate who always has a witty one-liner ready — except we turn it into 30 posts a month for your bar.
Case Studies / Mini Examples
- The £10 Glow-Up Cocktail – A neon cocktail sold only on Thursdays. Customers queued for the photo opportunity.
- The Karaoke Champion’s Crown – A £5 tiara handed to the best singer of the night. It became the must-win trophy of the town.
- The Instagrammable Roast Tower – A Sunday roast served stacked like a skyscraper. Every table ordered one to take a photo.
👉 Each of these ideas is pure Purple Cow: dirt-cheap to implement, but priceless in buzz.
How to Launch Your Bar’s Purple Cow in 30 Days
- Week 1 – Pick your remarkable idea (Silent Disco Quiz, Glow Cocktail, Roast Tower).
- Week 2 – Use SmartPubTools to create hype posts across FB, Insta, TikTok, LinkedIn.
- Week 3 – Run the event. Encourage customers to share stories/photos. Reward them with discounts or shoutouts.
- Week 4 – Repurpose the buzz. Post UGC (user-generated content), share clips, email your list, and lock it in as a recurring event.
Conclusion + CTA
Ordinary bars are ignored. Remarkable bars are remembered. In 2025, being good isn’t enough — you need to be different enough to get talked about.
With SmartPubTools, you can take any idea — from quiz nights to cocktails — and turn it into remarkable, shareable marketing that fills your bar.
👉 Ready to make your bar the Purple Cow of your town? Start today at smartpubtools.net.